Totally Preggers
by a sea of sound
Summary: His family no longer consisted only of animals with short attention spans and an old bass guitar. For some strange reason, the primeval gods or whatever deity he didn't believe in that controlled his life decided to finally work in his favor. (Revised 2/18/13)


"Neil?"

"Yeah?"

"...I'm pregnant."

* * *

Neil stops washing the dishes mid-scrub, causing a loud clatter to pierce through the contented silence when the ceramic plate shatters on the floor. Rachel cringes as the sound hits her, wishing her husband would take more care of their (her) valuables. However, Neil doesn't feel like a plate has shattered, but rather his sanity.

After all, he didn't know the first thing about being a father.

"Uh, w-w-what?" Neil stutters. It takes him a few breaths and collecting his rapid, nervous thoughts to get that one word out. He watches as the foamy water descends down the drain, feeling a similar, visceral feeling in his gut.

She merely shrugs, as if she thinks the news shouldn't surprise him in the slightest. "I have been impregnated."

When she puts it like that, it seems like someone else did it and not him. Despite his feelings of a potential nervous breakdown, he irrationally hopes to the Harvest Goddess that he is the father; he feels rather faint, nor does he appear to be able to think pragmatically. He finds himself summarizing her schedule, trying to pinpoint a time in which she could've had an affair on the side of their marriage.

6:00 am—Home.

8:00 am—Tend to the animals.

11:00 am—Tend to the crops.

12:00 pm—Lunch with him.

2:00 pm—Forage in the forest, mountain, and river areas.

6:00 pm—Chat with Tina and Felicity.

7:00 pm—Dinner with him.

10:00 pm—Sleep.

Perhaps she could've squeezed in some secret meeting with her paramour when she was supposedly hanging out with Tina and Felicity? What if it were Rod? What if it were Allen? What if—

"Neil, are you all right? Do you wanna go to Dr. Klaus?" she asks, leaning down toward him. In his shock and panic, he's neglected to realize he's fallen on the floor, or basically slid down to the floor on his butt. He looks up and all he can register is her wide blue eyes watching him with concern, and he feels somehow comforted.

"Am I the... f-father?"

He manages to get that phrase out without as much struggle as the last, but with a struggle nonetheless. Rachel smiles and begins to laugh at him, her rather loud voice disrupting his incoherent thoughts. Her equivocation makes him confused and quite terrified that he _isn't _the father, and that she really is having an affair with one of his friends.

The mere idea of her cheating on him is enough to flare up his anger, causing him to roughly grab her arms and glare at her. She stops, still smiling and giggling.

"Well?"

"No, it's Allen's." She scowls at him and rolls her eyes. "Of course it's yours, you idiot. Do you really think I'd do that to you, Neil? Now calm down and stop glaring at me."

"Are you even sure you're pregnant? Did you go to the doctor's and everything?"

By that time Rachel's already gotten up, pacing around the room with her hands wringing in front of her. "Well, no. I'm mostly relying on women's intuition. I mean, I haven't had my period in, like, a month, and what, we've been fucking for how long? Basically since we got married, and that was in fall; it's spring now, Neil. It could've happened anytime, and did I tell you I've been off the pill for the last couple months?"

She stops talking when she realizes he's out cold on the floor.

* * *

"So do I just..."

"You just stick it in there."

"Are you sure? Will it hurt you?"

"I don't know...maybe? Just do it!"

* * *

The first time they had sex, Neil was downright terrified.

The idea of it never occurred much to him, even as a teenager; if he really had to identify himself as any kind of -sexual, he figured he was asexual. Before meeting Rachel, he hadn't the slightest interest in anything pertaining to sexuality; however, Rachel was the embodiment or even the very personification of sex. She basically _reeked_ of it, making it impossible for even Neil to ignore. In addition, when they first met she had not completely moved into Echo Town, so naturally she wore her city clothes.

If you could even call them clothes.

("Neil? You there? I'm comin' in!"

Neil frantically rose from his bed, throwing on a discarded black t-shirt on the floor. He just barely managed to throw a pair of pants on before Dunhill barged into his house, an unfamiliar woman on his heels. Neil's face grew scarlet as his fly still remained unzipped, forgotten in his previous frenzy; it was then when he realized this stranger's eyes were focused on unspeakable areas.

She definitely was not from around these parts. Her cornsilk blond hair was expertly pulled into a bun atop her head, along with a few strands of loose hair framing her rather thin face. Seemingly catlike blue eyes watched him with an emotion that certainly made him feel uncomfortable, although he couldn't identify it.

However, her attire, on the other hand, made him feel violated just by looking at her. Her white shirt was just barely a shirt, as it was completely transparent, and her shorts were..._short._ Neil wondered how anyone could ever feel comfortable wearing what she wore, legs completely exposed and all. She reminded him of those girls back in high school, with their painted faces and translucent personalities. Strangely, this woman didn't wear makeup and looked relatively content in her own skin, a feat which separated her from those mindless teenage girls.

Perhaps it was because she, unlike them, was a woman.)

On another note, the fact that she was indeed a virgin markedly surprised him, though he attempted to feign indifference. At some point in their relationship, Neil had overheard Allen identify Rachel as a "prude whore," whatever that meant. (Although he later learned it was basically a girl who was a tease, who flirted but would never actually do anything. "Thank you Allen.")

Perceptive as she was, the look in his eyes betrayed him and she had been considerably upset. Neil recalled how miserable he'd been during her cold-shoulder period, and quickly resolved to be more conscientious of what he said and more importantly, what he did. Rachel had forgiven him, despite her threat that if he ever did that again she'd break up with him; though he'd never admit it, the thought alone scared him to death.

He loved her, even if he hated expressing it.

One day, or more accurately, one night after they'd been married for a week, Neil was sure he'd die of a heart attack.

Rachel tactlessly expected that he wouldn't know which way was what in the bedroom, so naturally she took charge. The whole taking off of clothes felt like such a long, arduous process in all its longevity, as Neil was someone who was not comfortable being close to others, even his _wife_. In his whole attempt at pushing her off of him, his hand had accidentally brushed against her breast, which caused Neil great anxiety and embarrassment. Contrarily to her husband, Rachel thought, some men would have wanted to touch her breasts had they been in his position.

But Rachel, being Rachel, decided not to call him out on it. After all, she figured that he'd gone through enough humiliation without her help. (In spite of the fact that afterward, she had punched the wall yelling, "DAMMIT NEIL! WHY WON'T YOU HAVE SEX WITH ME?")

The actual action of _doing it _had not occurred until a while after they got married. Despite all of her sexual frustration from that one incident, Rachel gave Neil more time to adjust to really _being _with her.

And after his time was up, Neil was ready.

"I-I'm ready."

"For what?"

"Ugh, Rachel don't make me say it!"

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about."

"To—you know..."

"Wh—ah, I see."

A long pause followed.

"Um, well?" Neil said, rising to rest on his elbow.

Rachel stared up at him, expression unreadable in the dark. "Do you know how long it took you?"

"Rach, I know it was long—"

"It's been a month, two days, and two hours since then."

"I—ugh. Never mind. Forget I said anything."

With that, he lay back down on his side, too embarrassed to face her. Rachel stared at his back long before wrapping her arms around him and slipping her dexterous hands under his shirt.

And so it began.

* * *

"What do you think it'll be?"

"I don't know, Rachel."

"I really would be fine either way."

"...A girl, then."

* * *

Neil had never taken much consideration for names. He never cared much for his, although he was thankful that he wasn't named Dunhill.

Rachel, on the other hand, was rather obsessive about names and labels. She had gone to such extremes as to actually travel back to the city (which took at least three hours) just to buy a baby name book, and without informing anyone, too. Neil had gone ballistic when he woke and couldn't locate her anywhere, but she was back before he himself took the journey to the city.

Looking up from the book, Rachel mused, "How about Emily?"

The name Emily reminded Neil of an angry customer who had named his cow Emily. "No."

"All right then. How about... Chloe?"

Neil shook his head.

"Sophia?"

Another shake.

"Bella?"

"I don't want my child to have the same name as a horrible fictional character."

"Eh, you're right. Ava?"

Neil sighed, leaning back into the garden chair. The day was rather boring and uneventful, and Rachel had forced him to eat with her at the Chai Kanon even though she knew he hated sweets. She claimed that they helped her think and get creative, whatever that meant. The names she rattled off had no meaning to him, and he doubted they meant something to her, either.

"Minnie?"

"Florence?"

"Bessie?"

"Cora?"

Each of them had been shot down by Neil, until he finally looked up and realized she was just blurting these from the top of her head; the baby name book lay abandoned on the ground.

"Those are your animals' names, Rachel. Why don't you just wait until the baby is born? We don't even know if it's a girl or not!"

"Neil, you're the one who said you wanted a girl. I just want to be prepared so our child doesn't have to go unnamed for their first moments in the world. You know it has to be perfect."

Rachel slumped her head onto the table in frustration.

"Roxann."

"What?" she said, hands fidgeting in front of her bulging stomach.

"Roxann."

She halted, resting her hands atop the bulge. They stared at each other, feeling as though time had stopped and the time paradigm had broken.

And then Neil smiled, then Rachel smiled, and reaching out across the table she grasped his hands.

Nodding, she whispered, "Roxann."

* * *

"Oh my fucking GOD! I am NEVER having unprotected sex with you again!"

"We're almost there!"

"SHUT UP! Stop talking before I shove a baby up your ass and force you to shit it out!"

"Ow! Fuck! Rachel! A little help, Doctor?"

* * *

Neil didn't think he had ever felt as faint as he did in those anything but ephemeral moments in the infirmary.

He sat just outside the screens, and angrily wondered why this hospital didn't have real walls. He didn't want to hear his wife's shrieks as she shoved _his _child out of her system, but then again Rachel was the one who built this place. Perhaps she didn't think people wanted privacy while they were injured, which was something Neil was going to have to ask her about after this whole birthing process.

The birthing process...surely it's not much different in humans as it is in animals? Neil was never good with people, and that included their biology. Animals were fairly simple in their mannerisms and reproduction processes, not like humans, where having sex was not just for reproducing. Sure, he'd seen cows and sheep give birth and they'd emitted some form of cry of pain, but that was rather dissimilar to how certain women reacted to such pain. It was common knowledge that all people vary in how they deal with pain; there are those that handle it well, and there are those that don't. Neil never was too sure which group Rachel fit into, as she was actually careful not to hurt herself too badly.

However, now that he sat in transit painstakingly waiting for his child to be born, he discovered that Rachel did not, in fact, fit into the former group.

It was only then that he came to the realization that he was lying on the floor and breathing rather heavily; strangely, he felt a sense of déjà vu. Hearing a loud cry, he slowly came back to his senses, still feeling weak and feeble. The loud cry set off a million visceral emotions not unlike those he'd experienced when Rachel first gave him the news that she was pregnant. More than anything, Neil was distressed and plagued with thoughts that he wouldn't be a good father, that he would turn out just like his own. They attacked him a million times per second, and in those instances he felt like dying.

"You, Neil, come here." Klaus said as he pulled off his latex gloves. The snapping sounds they made were gunshots to Neil's disoriented head.

He walked toward Klaus as though he were swimming through molasses. It felt like a death procession as his mind all but expunged him from his haunting thoughts which consisted of the prospect of him being a terrible father.

Neil swallowed hard as he took in the sight of the bundle in Rachel's arms. A plethora of different emotions coursed through him and he stopped, mouth as dry as a desert. The walls were suddenly too white, the floor too reflective and polished; he definitely would have to speak with Rachel about her tastes in interior design because the blinding decor was just not healthy for injured people.

"Neil, I—it's a boy."

Neil stared at her, hardly taking note of her now calm countenance. His eyes cautiously flitted again to the bundle, analyzing the child's—_his_ _child's_—ruddy little face. This wasn't his Roxann. This was... who was this?

"Are you just going to stand there because I'm not going to get up just so you could meet your son," Rachel remarked, bouncing the baby as he began to whimper. She did so with such ease as if she were some expert on caring for babies. Neil felt a surge of relief that at least one of them knew what they were doing. "So what do you think? Is he a Neil the Second?"

The child opened his eyes, wide and blue and so unfathomably _Rachel_, so naturally no, he wouldn't be Neil II. He would be...

"He's...he's Silas."

"Why Silas?"

"I dunno... It just fits."

"Well, if you think it fits then I do too."

Although the name came to him out of nowhere, it was so inexplicably _right_. To say the least, Neil was rather surprised that she went along with it. He'd thought she would take a seemingly perpetual amount of time to figure out a name for their son, as she hadn't been doing so for the past nine months.

Despite their initial wanting of a daughter, Neil was relieved that he wouldn't have to go through the horror of raising a _teenaged girl._

"Aren't you a little upset about not having a girl?" Rachel asked as he pulled up a chair. "I mean, I kind of panicked because I thought we'd have to look for _another _name, but surprisingly you have good taste."

"It really didn't matter much to me whether we had a boy or a girl towards the end. I just wanted us to be happy together." he said quietly, ears turning scarlet.

"Hold him, Neil." Rachel turned the bundle over to him and he felt anxiety creeping on him.

He balked. "Rachel, I don't think that's the best idea right now—"

"C'mon, he's your son. It's not like he's gonna burst like a bomb if you hold him or anything."

Taking a deep breath, he said, "All right. But it's not my fault if I drop him."

Shakily, Neil took the bundle from her and stared at his son. He was still in a mild state of disbelief that he was a father now, a parent. It was an intimidating thought because he himself hadn't had a real father figure in his life, or at least not one he could depend on. But looking into Silas's face, he saw someone who was vulnerable, someone who needed him. To be needed was a foreign feeling up until he and Rachel began dating, and still it was a difficult thing to process.

Silas opened his mouth and gurgled at Neil, with his blue eyes wandering everywhere. A lump started to form in Neil's throat as he watched him, barely registering Rachel's fingers pushing his bangs out of his face.

"Rachel, I—we—"

Neil's voice shook as he attempted to clear his eyesight and his throat, though to no avail. He felt as though his body was betraying him as his tears began to fall from his eyes, and he experienced in that instant an emotion so unparalleled from any he'd ever felt before. The feeling scared him at first, but the fact that he was there, with _his own family_ was enough to quell his fears.

He clutched Rachel's hand as she wiped his tears away, whispering, "Don't cry, Neil."

"I—I don't even know why I'm crying, Rachel. He's just so...so..."

"He's beautiful, isn't he?"

He smiled as Silas whined and whimpered. "Yeah, he is. I hope he'll be like you, Rach."

Rachel chuckled, shaking her head. "You want our little boy to be a conceited heartbreaker, running around kissing all the girls like a Don Juan?"

"No, I mean that I want him to grow up to be respectable and a hard worker, someone other people can count on."

"Neil, I hardly think people really count on me."

Neil frowned, which looked more like an angry scowl. "I do. Silas does. This whole town does. You still don't realize your impact here, do you Rachel? If it weren't for you, this town would not even be here by now. Hell, I'd probably be broke or even homeless somewhere in the city, along with Dunhill, most probably, but he could do pretty much anything so he's set. Me? I can't do anything for my life because all I really have are my animals."

He paused, breathing in and out. "But...ugh, Rachel, if I didn't have you, I would still be nowhere in life. I wouldn't know what it feels like to really _feel_ or to even live. I love you and—goddammit, you're asleep."

Neil sighed tiredly, pulling Rachel's blankets up under her arms the way she liked it. He had almost forgotten that she had gone through hours of excruciating pain to bring their son into the world and that she really didn't need someone to yell at her about how important she is.

His family no longer consisted only of animals with short attention spans and an old bass guitar. For some strange reason, the primeval gods or whatever deity he didn't believe in that controlled his life decided to finally work in his favor.

* * *

**Okay at first I was just going to make this a short, sweet little one-shot but now I think it'll be at least a two-shot, going through a bunch of stages of life.**

**You can probably tell which parts I got kind of lazy in writing, or had some form of writer's block as I tend to usually get. Also, the title is an allusion to The Sims 3 *wink wink*.**

**But that's all and leave a review if you want.**


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